Life Maps

I found this unpublished post while cleaning out my blog, written in my second semester of teaching.  While some things are dated (I am on sabbatical this semester), the ideas are still current.

Her study abroad semester in high school changed her life forever.

I teach an interesting group of students who bring a lot of energy and discipline to their studies. Recently I asked them to create a visual display of their life or goals, essentially a map of some kind to accompany an evaluation of said life (2 page paper).

Has decided that she wants to be a Chef.

I snapped pictures of the maps so I'd have a record for the grading later on, plus a photo of them holding their map so I could match up map to student. What I saw today (in conglomerate) was an interesting cross-section of maps, students and the faces of the other students in the background.

The only person I've ever known to get out the military just by asking.

We love to have her read in class; her British accent gives authority to whatever's written.

Built his map in a spiral, as he's alternately spiraled out of, then back into, control of his life.

Escaped with his family from Afghanistan, and is gearing up to be a physicist.

Took us on a treasure hunt of her life, having lived in one neighborhood the whole time.

Born in an Eastern European country, her story from her childhood captivated the class.

This is my sample, and because I'm older, I narrowed it down to the Voyage of Education--the islands representing different facets of the 32 year quest for an advanced degree; A=community college, B=undergraduate at a four-year college, C=graduate degree.

I sometimes wonder about my life now, how I don't seem to have much energy for new things, and feel captive to the grading and lesson prep. I try to get ahead, so as to have some time to create, read, and relax, but the responsibilities of this life I have seem to expand to fill the available time.

If I had to build a map of my life--the entire life--I would be doing it in hindsight. The single quality that captivated me about my students was their hope for the future. It was a nearly tangible quality that dangled in front of me, but out of reach. Their hopes are so specific: med school, become a chef, get a new car, have a baby, get married, have an interesting career. It's been interesting to compare their youthful visions with my oh-so-nonspecific hopes for the future: stay healthy, avoid injury, get enough sleep. I sound like I belong in an Old Folks Home, which is dismaying, because even my parents (some 30 years older than I am) seem to have more energy and drive and are no where near that Sit-in-Place place.

I feel like I'm using up my life. I always said that when I got the children raised there'd be no holding me back. . . but from what? Even then I couldn't be specific. I had certain dreams that I seem to have laid aside for safekeeping, but even Frost knew that way led on to way and there's no return to those mislaid dreams.

And now, when I have the delightful option of All This Time, I find there's not much I want to do. Or I find that there's too much I want to do. Or the other reality is that just contemplating what it is I want to do leaves me so tired, I don't even want to start.

And quite frankly, I'm jealous of these students, their faces reflecting this tangible future.

Name Change Chame Nange

In the past year the President of our College has presided over the opening of the library (slightly before her term, but only just), the demolition of the old library, the opening of the Aquatic Center, the demolition of a few more buildings, and new lights in some of the parking lots.  An auspicious beginning, for sure.

We recently received a Letter From the President where she outlined that according to committee we will now change the name of just about every building on campus.  My favorite change was the Aquatic Center's morphing over to the Kinesiology, Health Education and Aquatics Complex.  Everything is a complex now: West Complex, Central Complex, and East Complex.  But the Science Building to Canyon Hall?  The Cafeteria to Crafton Hall?  It's bad enough that the name of my college sounds like a boys' prep school, but we certainly are going to a high register level of language on the naming.

I wonder if I mailed out a Letter From the Adjunct, thanking everyone for their support, and announcing sweeping new changes in an area or two, if anyone would read it?  No.  The name of the Adjunct Game is Keep Your Head Down.  And now that I've used up my supply of upper-case letters, and the prose is flattening out, it's time to move from my Johns Hopkins Sewing Studio into my John Q. Harvard Living Room.

Buckle

So when school is over for the semester, is it buckle down to work?  Quiltwork? Housework? Clean-out-the-garage-work?

Buckle up a car seat belt? as in it a time for travel to see grandchildren, trips to Daiso Japan, the store that sells "mochilato," or a local fabric shop?

Or is it just a time to buckle, as in a buckle fracture, the bone collapsing under stress like an accordian? 

Can I do all three?  I gave my "final" yesterday, showing up ostensibly for 20 minutes, but ending up talking to a young (nearly 30 years old) man for nearly an hour, before I collected my things and bid him farewell.  ("Keep in touch!" the final parting phrase.)  I also was given a bag of Ghirardelli Chocolates from another young (nearly 35) man, who I'd had in a previous class.  It was good to see him, and this time he earned an A from me.

I've kind of flopped around in the interim between my last class a few days ago and this "final" and wondered if I'd ever get the energy to begin on some quiltwork, let alone the other kinds of work.  I feel like my brain is flabby too, having expended a ton of brain cells on a post on the quilty blog about copyright, and my recent quilt that is subtitled "High Drama, Prima Donna, Cloak and Dagger Quilt."  I feel more like the cat up there, from the Mutts cartoonist.

The trick is to be content, to look like that cat. . . rather than messing with a bunch of buckles.

I Should Say Something Significant

I should say something significant at this juncture in my semester, with the hefty research papers all graded, the giddiness of the students yesterday as they attended the last class, their interchanges as they worked in their groups, and their class evaluations neatly stacked up on my desk, but mostly I'm just tired.  I carried some of their euphoria through the evening, but as Dave and I visited, the euphoria escaped from me like air out of a balloon, and after loading up their essay grades on the class website I took myself to bed.

I should say something significant, but mostly I just feel relief that it's over, done and all the things I have worried about happening this summer can rightfully take their places front and center, not obscured by deadlines and lesson prep and grading and the disruption of teaching an evening class, although after talking to Heather, I pretty much had a cakewalk compared to what she does in her 6 to 9:30 p.m. Biology class at her college.  My hat is off to her and to all the other community college professors, who metaphorically water two-acre fields with only a pitcher of water.  Truth be told, I think all educators (our name for ourselves) feel pretty much the same way, of having to do too much with ever-shrinking resources, both in time, money and personal reserves.

I should say something. . . but I'm pretty much out of words.

Reflections on a Long Semester

This is what the semester felt like: me, surrounded by piles of papers, grading rubrics and my computer, dutifully marking comma splices, run-on sentences and loudly moaning to my husband as we compared the writing in our students' homework.  Other days I was typing away on the computer, dutifully creating assignments and worksheets and handouts day-by-day, week-by-week.

Some days I escaped, to the quilting and the cloth, and to trips with Dave or others.  But this semester, a new class I'd never taught, felt more like a ball and chain in many ways.  I felt so responsible. I was always trying to be at least a day ahead of my students.  I learned I hated my textbook.  Actually, I hated both of them, but doled out readings like some sort of medicine.  I was sorry I'd made the students buy them and tried to supplement with other books that I should have had them purchase, and interesting and challenging assignments.

This semester I also had Jonathan.  On the last assignment, I had them bring their paper and copies of all their sources in a manila envelope (his is above).  Jonathan was also known as Mr. Oh No.  Another friend had him the year before and when she'd hand back an assignment, he'd start keening "Oh! No! Oh! No!" at his less-than-stellar grade.  When I handed him back his paper today, he began keening again, whooshing in and out of the classroom if he was too upset (a coping mechanism for his particular disability), then finally storming up to me at the end of class and loudly saying "Okay.  Now we need to talk about my D+." I asked him to sit down until I had gotten through all the other students, and when finally I could talk to him privately, he immediately apologized to me for getting a such a bad score, for letting me down. Jonathan's words of apology caught me by surprise, reminding me again that he is at heart a nine-year-old boy in a man's body in a college classroom, trying his best to get his proverbial gold stars.

 

Today was our final exam day and this student came in bubbly and happy--the most animated I'd seen her the entire semester.  I used to think of her as zombie girl: lurching through the semester expressionless.  I wrote her this note at the bottom of her paper (which I think I took more time to grade that she took to write) to reassure that this time, her second time through this class, she would pass with a C.  She was still happy when she left today.

But now it's all done.  I've graded everything.  I tallied up grades.  I posted them on our electronic class site, and on Thursday, I'll upload them to Campus Central and move on to the next class.  I thought I'd feel something -- something more -- after finishing up.  It was a good class with some phenom students, as well as the others, including one of my C students who brought pizza for everyone in the class today.  

I'm wandering here, and badly.  If I were a teacher, I'd get out my purple pen and say "Focus.  Trim.  Edit."  But tonight I'm like my students, writing and writing trying to get at that elusive something I'm trying to say, yet knowing that I'll never be able to say it, but hope that the readers -- like some mysterious professor -- will sift my words, sort out the dross, find the gold.

Final Exam Today

In honor of my final exam day, and my last stack of essays to be graded, I present What Teachers Do:

Exhibit in the Crafton Hills College Library--April 2012

I clipped the Edward Tufte Envisioning Information (thanks, Dad!) to the back of my folded book, from which it takes its inspiration.

Catherine, the librarian, who helped me get it all set up.

View of our library, from the bottom of the hill.

Re-Write

Teacher's Log. Stardate: Saturday of any semester.

Yesterday was a long day of grading and lesson prep.  Flunked five students on their essays, but being the softie I am, they have a chance for a re-write.  They won't be happy on Monday, that's for sure.  Three others need to drop the class.  I told them they were going to fail, so their answer to that one is to not show up for class, like it's some sort of revenge on the teacher. ("Take that, Professor!")  They don't get that I don't care if they fail honestly, or if they fail by not showing up.  I just wish they'd get themselves over to registration and take care of their business, because I do know how to enter an "F" in the right slot, come Judgment Day.

It was one of those grading days where the first five essays all had problems: didn't include a highlighted copy of their source or they plagiarized the whole essay.  I don't flunk them for plagiarizing, per se, but it triggers that re-write, as obviously they need to. . . um. . . re-write and re-learn how to insert a source, but not the WHOLE source.  Another student regularly hands me a pile of papers, sliding them into my IN folder on the desk.  I always have to assemble his essay packet.  Makes me cranky.  Re-write. 

Another student didn't include any quotes in their essay.  Re-write.  Another student MADE UP THEIR SOURCES.  Yes, they were discussing the Influenza of 1918, and wrote that it affected the infant and elderly population the worst.  Which is wrong, and I know this because by the time I'd read that little tidbit, I had already read six other papers on the same topic, scanning the same Wikipedia article six times, so I knew that it wasn't true. 

Another young woman wrote about the origins of fireworks and it went something like this: the Buddhist priest consulted the ancient scripture and combined the magic ingredients.  It was actually quite well-written, but by that time I'd read three other papers on fireworks and I knew it happened by accident when a Chinese cook accidentally blew up the cookhouse, all while combining those magic ingredients.

Ten students didn't turn in a paper at all.  And that was after I put up on the blog that they needed to start getting their things on time, time to push the Grow-Up Button, time to act like they were in Freshman Comp, to where--if they get their act together--they may actually matriculate.  I didn't really say all that stuff, but I sure thought it.

So, it's just a typical post-grading let-down, where you think you are the worst professor in the world and the students would be better off in one of those canned on-line classes, rather than with someone who actually cares about the students.  And that's why when S. said she had to drop the class because her father was being operated on for a brain tumor and she needed to be with him, you send her back a warm note telling her that she can take any of your classes anytime, anyhow, because she was your top student, and boy, you're going to miss her as well as her well-written papers.  And another 19-year-old student confides that her mother, who is also going to school and has was one of your previous students, expects this young woman to be her nanny and take care of the younger brothers and sisters but isn't she entitled to her own 19-year-old life? and she wants to drop biology and then starts crying and you whip out your tissue pack, which you always carry for occasions like this.

And W. misses class twice (unlike her) and you find out that they brought the grandmother who is 80 and suffering from breast cancer out from a neighboring state to see the younger sister at the cheer competition but the grandmother was slightly sick with a nasty cold, which my student gets, and she doesn't care because even if she has to take a late hit on her essay, she got to be with her grandmother.

That's why I grade and lesson prep and why, on Monday morning, I'll be back in the classroom.

How to Deal with a Noisy Person

In our class, we are learning how to write paragraphs in the basic forms of English rhetoric.  One such for is "process," where they write a paragraph giving directions on how to do something or other, and I gave them a list of prompts.  I have learned in the past that some of my prompts, first developed over six years ago, are dated and need tweaking, like asking the students to "balance a checkbook."  Do young adults do this anymore?

One of the prompts is writing a paragraph on "dealing with a nosy person" and underneath I'd clarified by adding "someone who wants to know too much."  I have a student who arrived here from Taiwan two years ago and as you might suspect, is overwhelmed by our language.  And idioms.  So he translated this to How to Deal with a Noisy Person, which given our day and age of blasting stereos and excess noise is probably a good thing to write about.

Some of his advice is filtered through the vagaries of strange verbs and phrasing: ". . . it is three ways to deal with a noisy person instead of leave them alone.  First of all, to be patience for a person who began to make noisy, also hold on our temperament which could easily be effect by the person." Actually, this is great advice.

Some of the paragraph is filtered by his heavy use of a dictionary, such as "It is important when we try to calm down an over activity person has a dispassionately mood, or it is simple to lead to other worse consequence."  He suggests treating them politely, with respect which "will allow the person know we are not his or her opponent, but trying to express the person that it have better method to vent emotion."  He follows this by suggesting that we "leave he or she alone quietly and stay in good temperament in rest of day."

He wraps up the paragraph by saying "nobody in the world wants to deal with a noisy person; however, it could happen every moment in our life.  Consequently, we have to have positive attitude to deal with the person and hope the person could change his personality in his or her certain time of life."

I love this student, in a teachery sort of way.  In one simple paragraph, I learned about respectful ways to deal with a noisy person.  I remember traveling in Shanghai and hearing the phrase "hot and noisy" which a guide was using to describe their soup, but I thought it also described that Chinese city I was visiting, with its motorscooters, old cars, people everywhere with loud conversation in that sometimes sharp-edged sound of Asian language.  I also remember the "wall" of politeness that allowed people to live in tightly packed surroundings.  Maybe "nosy" people aren't a problem in the society he came from, whereas "noisy" certainly could have an impact if your neighbor next door is playing their music too loud.  How to live with noise?

And with the advent of our social networks, with Facebook, emails, blogs and the internet, have we lost the concept of a "nosy" person?  Listening in on phone lines and reading letters worked in days gone past; now we freely share all our news right out there in public.

As you can see, he's earnest, sincere and unfailingly polite.  This is his second time through this class, and I can see it's his language that is the barrier.  But I give him kudos for trying to get through not only the foreignness of being far away from his family (he lives with an relative) in a strange place with strange customs, but also the hidden traps of idioms in our language.

Google Docs Enthusiasm

I introduced Google Docs to my class today as a way for them to collaborate on a group document that won't get lost.  Or forgotten.  Or when Student X drops the class, and they lose the work (common in group projects).  I know Google Docs been pretty big everywhere else, but it seems to have slipped by our student body.

I reserved the computer area for the class, and set them all on machines in groups.  Previously I had gone in and set up a Google Doc for each group, so that I would own the document and could have a little control over it.  I sent an invite to their emails and told them to save the link.  We noticed that those who used the student email, or AOL, couldn't access them.  One young man went around helping people sign up for Gmail--he should get a commission from them as I think about 8 or 9 students signed up.

At first, the students were tentative.  I had my list of Google Docs up on the display screen, and selected a strong group to show their document.  At first there were a lot of giggles as they watched a little colorful flag, attached to the writing, work its way across the screen as they typed.  I had them change their notifications.  I showed them how I knew they were there, working.  I then placed a comment on each document and showed them how to respond.  The volume in the classroom zoomed, as they started typing, watching the changes appear on their own computers, and figured out that this was truly a collaborative effort.  Some were stalled (the groups without a strong personality) and I went around and tried to help them find their way.

After class ended, one student came up to me and said he was in three other groups for his classes, and he was going to show them this technology.  He had me show him how to set it up, and how to invite others.  He was totally jazzed.  So was I.

I showed my friend my group plan and the Google Docs idea; she called me Meriwether.  But since it's all still new and I don't know if it will work, I may have just jumped off of a cliff.

Here's Google's video of what happens on a Google Doc:

Character

In an article in the New York Times, the authors note that a couple of educators are trying to get a handle on what makes students succeed--in the long run.  They compiled a list of 24 character traits and set out to see how they could incorporate these ideas into their schools.  Some of the ideals are "zest" and "grit."

As I read a tiny thought kept echoing in the back of my mind: this is what I learned at home.  And now it must be taught in the schools of some at-risk neighborhoods in order to propel these students through to a better place.  I was encouraged by the educators' willingness to tackle these ideas and communicate them to their students, but saddened that home was failing these youngsters.  All in all, a provocative article about the topic of teaching character, and to translate it to the school setting.

The blue letters in those pictures are not digitally added.  It is blue tape.  Want to a video of how they created the word "Grit" in the gymnasium?  Click *here.*

If Not For Me

 I recently had four students drop, and I think another's about ready to bolt (so far, his two research paper assignments are late).  I call these students my "43%-ers" because that's about the average score they were keeping.

The last 43%-er to recently drop started crying when she looked at the score of her most recent essay (not an illustrious showing, shall we just say.  I stopped grading her errors on page two after the count hit 26).  She waited for me outside the classroom, and we talked about her paper.  She became angry, accusing me of stupid requirements that "no other teacher on this campus" would require her to do.  Some of these (there were a few) were:

• writing in a consistent point of view (POV) I don't allow them to use "you" in their papers--call me old school but I think formal composition is a good skill to have tucked away
• requiring a thesis (which she kept referring to as a topic sentence)
• insisting on structure in the paper.

She's a dynamo in front of the class--always poised and able to speak clearly and keep the class' attention.  I don't like to make the students cry.  I certainly don't grade their essays thinking "I wonder if I can make them cry."

The final shot was she pointed to her paper and said, "I could turn this paper in anywhere else on campus and get an A, but you?  you?"  She sputtered.  "If it weren't for you, I'd have an A in this class right now!" 

There were a few other things said, and I felt bad for her.  Bad that her meager effort was not getting her what she wanted.  Felt bad that her 9th grade skills were not enough to help her pass a college-level English class.  Felt bad that a young woman who had missed roughly a third of the class sessions and was nearly 15 minutes late every day thought that just wanting it would  get it done.

I can't help a lot of things.  Her grades stood, and that's why she dropped.  She's gone, but I'll be in that classroom again today.  I'll show them MLA and thesis construction for argument and formal POV and topic sentences and insist on proper spelling and punctuation and sentence construction.

Just like the rest of my fellow teachers, remembering that, if not for us, all the students would have A's.

Happy Dance--re-edited

Editors Note: This is a better, and more fitting, Happy Dance

This is to celebrate the completion of:

• research paper grading
• developmental English paper grading
• final exam written
• final exam key written

This is to bemoan that I still have:

• a whole set of essays for one class to grade
• those final exams (which they're taking tomorrow).

Hopefully more Happy Dance later.

Grading Avoidance

I'm doing heavy-duty Grading Avoidance.  It's an art.

Procrastination from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

Nothing

Right after I posted yesterday, a student sent me this that her sister (also a teacher) had used on her blog.  It made me laugh.  So here's to all the teachers out there!  Just duplicate this and hand it out next time you get The Question.  (Because there will always be a next time.)

DID I MISS ANYTHING?
Question frequently asked by students after missing a class

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours.

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent.

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning.
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose.

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter.
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder.
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here.


Poem written by Tom Wayman, a Canadian poet, and published in:
Wayman, T. (1993). Did I miss anything? Selected poems 1973-1993. Vancouver, BC: Harbour
Publishing.

Teaching Has Its Moments

I realize the last post was a bit hysterical--it's only because it was a hysterical day.  I fixed our favorite comfort soup, and with the comments of kind fellow-teachers and others, I made it through.

We've just finished studying Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a lovely novel about two pre-teens: Henry, who is Chinese-American, and Keiko,  a Japanese-American, who eventually gets placed in an internment camp with her family.  The assignment was to choose one of the topics we brainstormed in class, and write a compare/contrast paragraph based on a theme from the book.  I've gotten a range of responses, and they all been fairly carefully organized, with the exception of the following.  I quote it verbatim (spelling and everything):

"In the time in which the book HCBS took place, the main characters dined on lunches primarily related to there culture as opposed to the generation which are a melting pot of all ethnicities.  In the book the main characters consumed Japanese/Chinese cuisine such as breaded chicken and gravy.  Currently American lunches consist of fast food and unhealthy snacks such as fruit roll ups and hostess products.  As a result of the products that were eaten in the book, Americans decided to bully the Japanese.  It is unlikely that at lunch table today you will see foods that are multi cultural, foods that are not particular to certain ethnicities are no longer a cause for bullying instead ethnic foods are generally those that are most envied at the lunch table."

Food fight, anyone?

Parallel Tears

Once, a hundred-billion years ago, I was a long-term sub in our local high school.  They needed a teacher to take a class for a "few days" while they found/got/hired the teacher.  At about three weeks into the semester of me posing like I was their teacher, living the tiny lie in order to keep control of the classroom, one young man started acting out.  Dealt with. Then I was late one day to get in line at the copy machine, not finishing up my copies until the bell was ringing.  I heard the secretary's voice behind me asking me how things were going--not a friendly voice. I was grading five periods, prepping three classes of all ages, pretending I was having a good time at 80 bucks per day, while the secretary would take my freebie "prep" period away and have me teach another class somewhere.  I was staying up late, getting up early, and the papers to be graded stacked up like planes over LaGuardia on a foggy day.  I mentioned this state of affairs--plus the fact that it had pretty much killed any sex drive--to the librarian and she simply said "Welcome to my life."  Yuch.

The next day that same acting-out student threw a stink bomb into our portable classroom, and I called security, who never came.  So I marched the entire class down to the only available space--the auditorium--read them the riot act, had them each write a note about what they saw/knew/did.  Security arrived and wondered what the heck we were doing in there; all they cared about was that we were not in our classroom--not the fact that our classroom was uninhabitable.  I let the students out 10 minutes early.  I didn't care a bit where they went, or if I were to be canned, or anything.  I took the notes down to the principal's secretary, wordlessly handed them to her and sat down in the chair beside her desk and burst into tears.

This semester has had some similarities to that ill-fated five-week sojourn in high school.  The first similarity is the caliber of student.  One class I'm teaching is a remedial English class (oops, now we called it Developmental English) and many of those students are just now--13 weeks into the 18 week semester--figuring out that this really is college and that 43% grade is all theirs.  They earned it all by themselves.  They can't blame mom, the principal, the evil PE teacher, the bus driver, whatever or whoever.   They can only blame their lack of preparation, realizing that all that goofing around in high school has penalized their performance now in college, even at the lowest level of English that we offer.

The other class is a lovely, divine, brilliantly delightful Introduction to Literature class where I really get to talk about stories and poems and all those things I studied in grad school.  However.  It would really be all those things in the above sentence if I had half a clue what I was doing.  I feel like I'm about 20 minutes ahead of them, all the while maintaining that subtle lie that I Do Know What I'm Talking About.  I do, sort of.  But this week they hit the first of their assignments on their literary research paper and I feel like I've thrown my students into the swamp and left the rescue equipment back at the house.  Really, I'm in the swamp with them, surfing "Literary Research Papers" on the web at night, hoping to find something to guide me that will help me guide them.  There's no mentoring at this level--we're that Budget-Cut Community College you read about, where most of the teaching is done by adjuncts (80% at our school) and there's no money for anything.

Especially literary databases that will help the students with their research papers. We went to the library for some help, and while it was a fine presentation, it was painfully obvious that our little college was set up for English Comp research papers, not the more critically-intense areas of literature.  After the librarian left, I clued them all into the Big U down the freeway and suggested they head over there for database access.  But I realize I don't even have a clue how to tell them to find what they need. It's a painful realization.  Add that feeling of failure to the lack of sleep, the constant prepping, constant grading, and the realization that if I stop the machine to have a night off--like I did for Quilt Night last week--I'll just be more behind the next day.  (Hence, the dearth of posts on this blog.)

So, today in office hours, when a student started crying over her Fiction Essay, I handed her a tissue, coached her into re-evaluating her thesis, and then talked to her for another 30 minutes past office hours time about her application to Big U, her self-statement, her parents' divorce, the fact that she'd just now gotten her textbook (!), I have to admit feeling a little of the same pile-up in my own life.

When I got home, my saintly mother sent me an email with a video link to a flash culture mob of 650 choral artists gathering at Macy's in Philadelphia for a flashmob of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.  (She does things like that to keep me in the human race, I think.)  I watched the people sing this glorious song, line by line, tenor, bass, alto, soprano and I joined in and then wept, letting the good feelings, the smiles, the happy faces of those people wash over me.  Parallel tears to my student's.  Tears for my own inadequacy.  Tears for my students' frustration. Tears for me, for the writing I don't do because I let everything else take precedence. Tears celebrating that it will soon be time to pull Handel up to the top of the playlist--tears to signify the end of this very long semester.

Student Emails--October

Hi Professor E.  I wanted to inform you that I will be absent from class all next week.  My reason why, is because I got the job I was interviewed for on Wednesday.  They're going to be training me all next week from 8am-4pm.  My question is are you just going to give me zeros on those days or can I make it up somehow?  Can I email the work?  Can you please work with me on this. 
Thank You For Your Time

Dear TYFYT--
Are you really this dumb?
Are you really asking me if you can receive credit for not coming to class and not turning in your work? 

Just checking--
Ms. E.



********************************

Email #1, at 10:50 a.m. (when class ends and when I pack up all my stuff and move upstairs to a different classroom to teach a different class) 
Dear Mrs. E.,
       I'm writing you this email to let you know that I wasn't in class today because I had to take my mother to class this morning. I have my paper typed up and ready to turn in. Thank you and have a good day.
      Sincerely,
Lost in Space



Email #2, at 12:52 p.m. (at the end of my second class, but before I got home and checked my mail)

Mrs. E.,
I noticed you weren't in the library or in your classroom so I kind of panicked and didn't know if I should hold on to my paper or turn in so I left it in the classroom next to the hard drive. I hope you receive/ find it.
Lost in Space




Dear Lost in Space,
I'm happy your mother got to class today--it's nice that you are so dependable and helpful.  In case you didn't notice from our discussion the other day about adjunct professors (of which I am one), I do not have a classroom.  I do not have an office.  I lug my stuff around in that geeky rolling briefcase that I bring to class.  Finally, when I'm done teaching, I skedaddle. 

In addition, it's always SUCH a great idea to leave your papers hanging around on desks in empty classrooms.



Ms. E.

Higher/Lower/Lowest Education

ask3r (you may remember him from an earlier post) came in late today, took a long time to write the grammar test, and finally needed to finish it in office hours.  No problemo.  He joined two others, but after they left he asked for more help.

He came to the United States with his family when he was 14 and his younger brother was 5.  The younger brother "caught" the language--this confusing English language--but ask3r (not his real name) has not.  He is struggling.  He struggles with understanding what I say in class (I probably move about 300% faster than he is capable of comprehending), struggles with the reading of the novel, struggles with reading in the textbook and struggles with the 6 or 7 practices that accompany each grammar lesson.

So we work together on Subject-Verb agreement, and I begin to explain the charts of the conjugation of the verb "to be," "to have," and "to do."
--What is to do? he asks.  From what follows I gather that he wants me to translate it with my limited Spanish.  I do that.
--"Es hacer," I say.  "To do is the same as the Spanish verb hacer."
--He borrows my pen (he only has a pencil) and carefully writes in his book "aser."

I realize then that he doesn't know his own, his native language. This is a gap that all my enthusiasm, my scribblings on the whiteboard, the carefully executed Powerpoints from the textbook manufacturer, or my painstakingly written handouts can't address.  ask3r is in over his head in my class, and it's the lowest English class we teach.

He makes progress through the practices, making good use of my Office Hour, and asks if we can meet again on Friday for another hour.

This is where it gets dicey for me.  While I like helping students and really enjoy teaching, I am only paid for the hours I teach; this semester I teach 8 hours a week.  I also receive part-time pay for "professional development/student contact" up to 8 hours per class per semester.  The practical application of this is that after the lesson prep and grading are figured in, I make less than do most of my students at their Starbucks barrista-type jobs.  I have two new classes I'm teaching, with two new preps.  Frankly, it's all been a bit much this semester.  And do I want to add in student tutoring to the mix?  Do I want to get ask3r through these junior high basics on my own time?  For no pay?

The problem is bigger than just him.  He is one of three in my class that could use this time.  H., a Hmong immigrant, cheerfully sits in front of my desk, a smile on his (mostly) blank face.  L., an older student, is intent, sits next to him, and struggles through his own language issues to maintain a C average. But it's not just that some of my students are learning in different languages.  I'd originally planned to test the students on three chapters at a time (eg: Pronouns, Apostrophes and Parts of Speech), but at their request I winnowed it down to two items, and this week the test addresses only one chapter.  I hate to admit this, but I have resorted to making up the test early.  Then as I review the entire chapter in class, I hone in those parts that will be on the test.  And this last one, I even took some of the test questions from their practices, dumbing it down further.  I don't think I can go any lower and still look myself in the eye.


All of this is to say it's been a long week.  I've got grading for their class to do, lesson prep, and yet I'm going to pile it all in the corner and sew the binding on my Christmas quilt.  The holidays are right around the corner and believe you me, they can't get here fast enough.

Learning Styles

Oh Hallelujah!  I thought I had died and gone to Teachery Heaven when I read this quote from a recent article published in the New York Times:

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

It was in the article on Good Study Habits, and it called to mind my favorite example of this erroneous thinking (which, by the way, is all through my brand new textbook, reinforcing this (dare I say it?) delusion).

The first year I taught English Comp I had a hot-shot athlete in the back who was trying to transfer to Cal Berkeley on the strength of his water polo moves, or so he said.  His work was barely above a C-level, although I think he was probably capable of more.  That would have required some exertion, which he didn't seem to want to do in an English Class.  But I liked this student, generally.

Near the end of the class, I conferenced with all the students over their research paper.  His was a mess, and that's being polite.  It was full of plagiarized sections, grammatical errors, misspellings and typos and it was basically a giant Cut-and-Paste effort in order to pass (they had to turn in a research paper, or risk failing the class).  I also reviewed his lackluster grades over the term while I had him sitting there.

"Oh," he said.  "Those failing grades on quizzes are easy to explain."  He went on.  "I'm a visual learner, and I just can't seem to learn by listening or reading, or any other way, for that matter."  He leaned back in his chair, the challenge thrown down to a proffie who basically taught by group discussion, and yes, reading and listening.  I looked at him, hoping the perfect repartee would come to mind.

"Might I suggest," I offered, "that you learn a few other strategies?"  He landed the feet of the tipped chair gently on the floor, and we went on with our conference.  It was then that I really truly hated that whole thinking of Learning Styles.

I remember getting the first of these memos from one of children's teachers.  [On a side note, I feel like some of my children got caught in a lot of the Hocus Pocus of failed teaching strategies of the last decade such as Whole Language, Group Algebra, etc.] In order to help this child--a so-called kinesthetic learner--we made pudding and wrote out the spelling words out in pudding.  We also broke spaghetti into small pieces and created words.  I had them write the words on my back with their finger, tracing the shapes as I tried to cook dinner.  We were all drinking the Koolaid, I think.

Nice to know there's no basis for any of this.  Go and read the article--it's really about studying styles and can be helpful for all those parents of my grandchildren out there, as well as any other classroom teacher.